Its so hard for a developer to re-boot a franchise, especially on a new console generation. Too much of the old and you run the risk of alienating new players, especially considering the amount that has changed in the last ten years. However, too much of the new and you could seriously piss off your older fans. It seems though, that Eidos Montreal and Square Enix have done a good job. You’ve probably heard of the stellar review that official XBOX magazine gave Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a whopping 10/10, PC gamer UK also gave a final 94% and an editor’s choice award. Saying that it “is absolutely the Deus Ex of our age, a genuinely worthy prequel, and a game that puts almost everything else in the genre to shame.” So we all know that it is going to be good, and so the industry sits waiting, on the edge of its seat, hands gripping the armrest like a 14 year old about to see his first real boob. With this highly anticipated game coming out in just a few weeks, we here at EMGN felt obligated to give you all a quick preview of what you’re in for.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third installment in the Deus Ex franchise; it is set in the year 2027 and is a prequel to the original Deus Ex which arrived on shelves in 2000 for the PC and 2002 for the Playstation 2. You play as Adam Jensen, head of security at Sarif Industries, a company that deals with controversial human augmentation. The game is a first-person role-playing game and you will be sent on missions by Sarif that are playable in almost any form you like. All missions will give you the ability to go in heavy, killing everything in sight, or take a more tactical approach with you slinking through air vents and taking out enemies quietly. This is achievable by the host of augmented upgrades that you will receive, courtesy of your employers, such as cloaking abilities, x-ray eyes and the ability to jump off a five story building and not go splat when you hit the bottom.

These augmentations are key throughout the game, and you have to choose between which ones you want. Upgrades are either passive or active, in the sense that they are either always working or are activated when you choose, and range from extra strong arms that allow you to rip a turret off the ground and throw it at someone’s head, to a little pulse around your minimap that helps you tell if enemies can hear your footsteps. They are all part of the five “pillars of gameplay” as said by the developers, and fit into the categories of Combat, Stealth, Exploration, Hacking and Social. Augmentations also play a huge part in the story, as Adams upgrades were given to him against his will to save his life after a terrorist attack. They are also crucial in the sense that most of the people attacking you are doing so because they are against the heavily controversial human upgrades. Themes of trans-humanism and discrimination are rife throughout the entire game and it will make players think hard about augmentations “if I could, would I?”

However one of the most impressive parts of the game is hacking. The hacking mini game is extremely deep and has had its own designer to focus on it and make no two terminals the same. For example, when you are trying to hack into one of your workmates PCs the screen will look completely different than if you were trying to hack into a police officers. The mini game involves you moving your cursor through several little nodes, each with a risk of being discovered by the computer, with the objective being to get to a goal. You will be given the chance to divert off the straight course to risk gaining extra XP, but your risk of getting caught goes through the roof. Also, if you’re discovered the computer will go through the system, node by node until it finds you, and if it does it’ll shut you out and set off alarms. As the game progresses Adam will come across more and more complex terminals, but don’t panic! Some of the upgrades available will give you an edge against the computer, such as a nuke that will get you into one node with a zero chance of being caught, or bugs that slow down the computer when it’s searching for you. But if becoming a computer geek in-game doesn’t interest you, you don’t have to get in a tizzy. This game is designed to be extremely intuitive and very few things are completely isolated by a hacking terminal alone. For example, if there’s a door that’s way above your skill level you don’t have to just walk away. You could just whip out your glasses (oh, I forgot to mention, you have glasses embedded in the sides of your skull, that just slide out whenever you want) with their new sexy x-ray upgrades that you just bought. Oh, and as it turns out there are some guards on the other side of the door. So you can just let off a few gun shots and when they come through to investigate, dispose of them all with the 12 inch long chisels that come out of your arms before they even get the chance to fire a single round. Letting you mosey on through that door and retrieve whatever’s on the other side without a care in the world. Now all of this comes at a cost. After all if Eidos gave you all of these toys for free, you would just massacre the enemies and find everything way to easily, where’s the challenge in that? So they’ve developed a battery system to restrict it. Adam has a set of rechargeable batteries that power most of his abilities, but once a battery becomes completely used up, its gone. This mechanic is sure to add a level of challenge and planning to the game and keep people from just going crazy, because even things like the non-lethal take downs (when you punch someone with your metal fists so hard that they see stars and fall asleep) drain some of your energy. But again, don’t get to wound up about that, because even the batteries can be upgraded to last longer.

This game is all about the player playing their own way. They are playing as Adam Jenson, but they are leaving their own very distinct mark on him and shaping the story with their own actions. Much of this is done in the cutscenes, with the only major in-game decisions you can make are weather to knock someone out, kill them or spare them. The cutscenes give you the ability to choose what to say at certain points during a conversation, weather you want to be nice or nasty. Obviously this isn’t extensive to the degree of Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but still allows the player to control the situation and steer the things in the direction that they want. You can even get an upper hand in this as there is a conversational upgrade that allows Adam to release pheromones and get a gauge on how the other person is thinking.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has been in development for nearly four and a half years and it shows. The cutscenes are beautiful and the engine is powerful, the AI are smart and the gameplay looks amazing. Any fears  people had about the re-boot have been quelled and so (understandably) it has gone gold already, purely from pre-orders. This game is one that you should seriously be looking at, it is arguably one of the most anticipated games of this year and it’s going to be very interesting to figure out what the final product is like. Here at EMGN we will keep you all updated on how the game goes and will have Toms review up ASAP to give you a final verdict.